The Blue City

Jodhpur

The blue city, view from the fort 

Jodhpur or "The Blue City" is a must visit when travelling throughout India, but shockingly the entire city isn't blue (I'm as disappointed as you are). It being a city in Rajasthan it is also known for its forts. I know, I still can't believe how many forts there are over here and how little I know about Indian culture (my bad). 

Although here is a blue building

A train and a bus from Pushkar and you are in Jodhpur. We caught the bus from Pushkar bus station (surprisingly enough). You have to ask people which bus to catch otherwise it’s impossible to figure it out. The buses come every half an hour and we were lucky to time it right and get one just before it left. This cost the locals 20 cents each whilst costing us 40 cents (I mean we really can't complain). We learnt our lesson (which I seem to say a lot in this blog) and caught a tuk tuk to the train station instead of trying to catch a non existent bus like last time. 

The train to Jodhpur was uneventful and we safely arrived on time. Now a note for young players. If you try to reserve a train ticket in Jodhpur the reservation office is in another building about 500m away from the train station which only took us about 30 minutes to figure out..

View from the roof of Babi Haveli

We stayed at Babi Haveli Guest house. The owner is the sweetest man we have ever met. You know he’s a beautiful soul when the wifi password is "lovenature". Their rooftop space was beautiful but the food was less than desirable. 

We were only in Jodhpur for a short time but could’ve happily stayed longer. Now the fort really is a must do. I couldn’t remember how old the fort is so I asked Luke, he replied with “old”- so there you go it's definitely old. 

Luke regretting his choice of top, if I do recall correctly it was quite warm this day. Oh well, that's what happens when there are no other clean shirts.

When you go up there you get to go through the fort, it’s grounds and it even has a museum where you can attempt to educate yourself. 

Walking into the fort

Thousands of kites (the bird) swarming around the fort 

Whats that you wanted a different view from the fort? Well here you go

Fort gardens

And just one more for good luck

There were dagger like spikes sticking out from this door. This was because enemies used elephants to barge into doors back in the day.

The other area in Jodhpur to see is the markets which surround the old clock tower. Don’t expect to buy anything here as it is definitely suited to the locals but it’s fun to have a look around. Here we ate the most delicious snack. The best way I can describe it is by calling it Indian nachos. Except with lentil chips instead of corn chips. It was delightful. That followed by a coconut lassi and we were in heaven. 

The infamous Indian Nachos

Clock tower and markets

The fort really is hard to miss in this city

Babi (the owner of where we were staying) was so sweet he even booked our bus tickets to Udaipur and organised a tuk tuk to the bus station the following morning for us. If you are going to book a bus over here do it through the government run ones (RSRTC). Here we got the super delux bus (think a travel bus from Australia) to get to our next spot. We really were living it up by catching this bus instead of the local one (I know we’ve changed). As you can catch a local bus that takes a few hours more for less than a quarter of the price. 

I would highly recommend checking out Jodhpur if you are planning a trip. 

Love always,

Claire and Luke (Luke was basking in the sun as I wrote this so he counts as a co- author too right?)

Not a terrible view from our balcony